In a fit of excessive New
Year enthusiasm, I initially typed the year for this recital as 3013. It
transpires that an additional millennium has not yet passed, though nevertheless a
degree of time travel somehow seemed comforting on a dark early January night, that time travel taking us back to
seventeenth-century Venice. Monteverdi one might have expected, yet he appeared
but once, at the very beginning – and what a change it was to hear in a recital
focused upon any period or none, the music of not just one but two female
composers.

Monteverdi’s Si dolce e’l tormento was as notable for
its theorbo ‘accompaniment’, Matthew Wadsworth offering considerable variation
in attack, dynamic contrast, and mood, as for Carolyn Sampson’s intelligent
ornamentation, admirably suited to the text. Barbara Strozzi provided the
greater part of what remained of the first half. Sampson and Wadsworth showing
her to be far more than an ‘interesting historical figure’. Despite the
strophic form of the Monteverdi item, Strozzi’s Rissolvetevi, pensieri sounded in a sense simpler, perhaps more of
a song in the modern sense, melody very much to the fore. At the same time,
here and elsewhere, one felt that the opera stage was not so very distant; both
‘song’ and ‘aria’, then, seemed apposite frames of reference. L’amante segreto sounded almost as an
operatic scena. Its plaintiveness was established from the outset by Sampson;
even if one did not have, or did not understand, the words, one would readily have
guessed their meaning. Her voice sounded ‘pure’ without the bloodlessness that
afflicts a good number of ‘early music’ sopranos. This sounded very much as the
post-Cavalli music that it is, certain aspects of melody and harmony recalling
Strozzi’s teacher. Che si può fare
was likewise beautifully sung. If, for my taste, a little more vibrato would
not have gone amiss, there was nothing aggressive about its denial and there
was no denying the cleanness of Sampson’s tone and the sincerity of her
delivery.

In between the Strozzi items
came solo pieces for Wadsworth. A little of such music goes a long way for me,
I am afraid; I suspect it is infinitely more rewarding for the player than the
listener, especially when the latter finds himself in a relatively large hall.
(A seventeenth-century octagon room, such as that at Salzburg’s Schloss Hellbrunn,
might well offer a different experience.) In the two pieces by Alessandro
Piccinini, Wadsworth was an admirable guide, happy to leaven his tone with
vibrato. The constant need to retune is a bit of a bore, but the fault lies
with the instrument, not the performer. A passacaglia by Giovanni Kapsberger
was cleverly programmed so that its ground bass ran straight into Strozzi’s Che si può fare, the solo item
functioning as a prelude.

Francesca Caccini, daughter
of Giulio, opened the second half. Her ‘Lasciatemi qui solo’ was again
song-like, seemingly in the tradition of her father’s music. Sampson’s Italian
sometimes sounded a little careful, though meaning was always conveyed in an
intimate performance, her deathly closing whisper, ‘Gia sono esangu’e smorto,’
a case in point. Benedetto Ferrari’s ‘Voglio di vita uscir’, despite its title,
offered a lively contrast, something of a relief given the general tenor of the
programme. Monteverdi sounded closer than elsewhere, both Zefiro torna and the notorious closing duet of L’incoronazione di Poppea – Ferrari a prime candidate as composer –
coming to mind. Three more pieces by Piccinini followed. Again they were
clearly well performed, yet to my doubtless untutored ears they proved rather
tedious; perhaps some people feel the same about nineteenth-century piano music,
but I think I shall stick with Chopin and Liszt. Strozzi’s L’Eraclito amoroso seemed to breathe the world of a small opera
stage, though equally one could imagine it properly in more intimate
surroundings, performed by the composer herself.

If it would be difficult to
claim any of this repertoire, even Monteverdi’s contribution, as ‘great’ music,
much of it affords ample interest, especially when performed as well as here. It
was a pity, then, that the programme note, arguably more important for
listeners in a concert of unfamiliar repertoire than in, say, a performance of Winterreise, was often confusing and/or
poorly written. Rick Jones’s opening sentences read as follows:

In 1612, Venice ended 45-year old
Monteverdi’s year of unemployment since walking out on Mantua. He’d become
famous through his operas Orfeo and
the lost Arianna [certainly not lost
in 1612!], and defended his ideas in the press, so that most employers were
afraid to take him on. The merchant city state in the north was up for it
though and never regretted it.

Alas, matters did not improve
thereafter. It was a rare lapse, though, in terms of the Wigmore Hall’s
typically high standards and did not detract unduly from the music, which for
the most part spoke very well for itself.

As an encore, we were offered
the English folksong, ‘I will give my love an apple’. Wadsworth explained that
it was a somewhat oblique contribution to Britten year, given that Britten once
set the song. At any rate, this was a loving and lovely performance.